Dinner and a Show
by Masquerading as Quality
Summary: Princess Aurora invites Maleficent out for dinner at the House of Mouse. [Prompt response, modernish Magic Kingdom AU thing, eventual femmeslash]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Since my writing and my life have been all over the place, I asked for random prompts on Tumblr. This is a response to one of those prompts, requesting that Maleficent and Aurora have a night out together at the House of Mouse. It will be relatively short and as light-hearted as I get. Feedback would be much appreciated! Enjoy!

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><p>In the center of the Magic Kingdom stood a glorious castle. It was home to many royal families from many different worlds, all of whom had agreed to come to this kingdom to be free from a variety of dangers, widespread or personal. It was also home to a few non-royal persons, and even a few persons who were not strictly human. While some people questioned the presence of these creatures in what was meant to be their sanctuary, they were sternly reminded that this was a safe haven for all, regardless of who they were, from whence they hailed, and yes-even their past misdeeds.<p>

Around high noon, in the topmost tower of the castle, a telephone began to ring. It rang once...twice...a third time before the tower's resident even deigned to acknowledge that it had made any sound at all.

Maleficent looked up from her book and turned with superhuman slowness to award the telephone a menacing glower. The phone, blithely unaware of the hatred it engendered, rang a fourth and fifth time under its mistress's fearsome gaze.

Still with an eerie serenity belying the rage that boiled within her veins, Maleficent stood and walked languourously over to where the telephone sat. When the abnormally large mouse who was now her landlord had insisted every denizen of the Magic Kingdom have a telephone installed, Maleficent (following multitudinous and borderline violent protests) had chosen the least offensive place a telephone could sit, which was to say, out of her sight.

The telephone rang a sixth time, then a seventh. Whoever was calling was dreadfully persistent, or perhaps aware enough of Maleficent's distaste for the telephone not to be deterred by the waiting time.

On the ninth ring, Maleficent picked up the offending device and relished the instant of silence left in the wake of its infernal ringing. "You must have a great deal of time on your hands," she informed her caller coldly.

"You could say that," replied a voice Maleficent had hoped to avoid hearing for the rest of eternity.

"Princess Aurora," Maleficent barely suppressed a heavy sigh. "To what do I owe this disruption?"

"Oh. Well. This might sound a little crazy."

The sigh Maleficent had previously suppressed made itself known. "Go on."

"I wanted to ask you to go to dinner with me."

Were Maleficent another person, she would have laughed aloud. As it stood, she glowered furiously at _nothing_-and this was the thing she despised most about talking on the telephone! "Please tell me I've misheard you."

"Okay, I know, I know, but hear me out? There's this huge party tonight, and everyone will be there, and everyone will be there _with_ someone..."

Maleficent cut her off. "I can think of an imbecilic prince and three simpering fairies who would be overjoyed to accompany you."

"My aunties might go for a time, of course, but they're like parents to me. And Philip...well, we're not exactly on dinner-eating terms since I asked to postpone the wedding again."

_And we are on such terms?_ Maleficent pressed the tips of her fingers against her temple. "My condolences," she replied drily.

"Please?" Aurora continued, evidently unphased. "I just don't want to spend another evening as everyone's third wheel. Anyway, maybe you'll like it. Cindy said she's seen you at the House of Mouse dozens of times."

"The House of Mouse?" Maleficent echoed incredulously. But of course a large event would be held there. It was something of a local gathering spot for those who weren't born in this kingdom.

And it wasn't the place she minded, particularly, but rather, a significant portion of its clientele. In her land (and by extension, Princess Aurora's), Maleficent had been virtually immune to romantic overtures. The vast majority of the population found her revolting and had no trouble telling her so. Anyone who didn't would be hard-pressed to reach her. She had lived atop a foreboding mountain, far away from civilization, with no telephones to speak of.

But every time Maleficent took a meal at the House of Mouse, she fell prey to a relentless parade of idiot men from various worlds who seemed intent upon earning her favour. Their advances were not only unwelcome, but profoundly irritating.

"Isn't it true?" Aurora wondered.

"Why you think this is a compelling argument escapes me."

"Well," Aurora offered, and Maleficent sneered instinctively at the hopeful lilt in her voice, "you haven't hung up on me yet."

Maleficent's sneer intensified. "Touché."

And why was she considering this at all? Though it was true enough she'd never wanted to kill Aurora the person (as opposed to Aurora the concept), she also bore no especially positive feelings. All of their encounters in this new land had been surprisingly uneventful. If Aurora was any more frightened by or resentful toward Maleficent than the average person, she did not let on, nor did she adopt the strange, affected manner of those pretending bravery.

Indeed, Aurora was downright pleasant to Maleficent-far more so than many mortals who had no personal reason to be unpleasant. Without thinking very much on the matter, Maleficent had returned Aurora's pleasantries. Evidently this had been enough to earn her a dinner invitation.

It occurred to Maleficent that Aurora had always led a solitary existence, but she was surprised to learn that this loneliness had carried over past her stint as the charge of the three good fairies of Stefan's court. She had expected-again, without very much thought-that a beautiful and genuinely kind-hearted young maiden would easily find friends and admirers to fill her days, if she wished it. Therefore, that Aurora should request Maleficent's company, of all people, was at best perplexing.

Maleficent reconsidered this with a small shake of her head. At best, it was ever so slightly intriguing. And this was the reason Maleficent hadn't yet ended the conversation.

"So you are considering it?"

Then again, this could be a recipe for disaster. Maleficent suddenly felt slightly agitated. There was always the chance, however minute, that this innocuous phone call was part of some grand scheme to bring about her embarrassment and eventual downfall.

Well! If this simple peasant maid thought she could make a fool of Maleficent, she would soon see the error of her ways!

"Very well," Maleficent said at last. "What time shall this fiasco commence?"

"Oh, how wonderful!" Aurora cried, and the genuine happiness in her voice caused Maleficent's knuckles to whiten around the phone. "Thank you! Oh, thank you! You'll have a good time, I promise! I'll make sure of it!"

"You haven't answered my question," Maleficent snarled through clenched teeth.

Aurora remained utterly and infuriatingly unconcerned by the vitriol in Maleficent's tone. "Right! Of course! Six-thirty! Thank y-"

Maleficent slammed the telephone back onto the receiver.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic response! This is proving really fun to write, and I hope you will continue to enjoy and to share your thoughts!

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><p>"What?!"<p>

"Rose, dear, are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Have you lost your mind?"

The last of her three fairy aunts' reactions, which belonged to Meryweather, was a thought which had admittedly run its course in Aurora's own mind a few times over the past five hours. She imagined she must be at least a little bit mad to even think of calling up her would-be murderer and asking her to dinner. Perhaps she'd gone off the deep end entirely when Maleficent had miraculously agreed, and Aurora had been positively giddy with excitement.

The truth was that Aurora could more than likely have found someone else to ask to dinner. This land was so packed full of new citizens from far and wide that it would be foolish of her to think she'd thought of them all. Why, there was a whole club dedicated to singles...not that Aurora was single exactly.

But Aurora had been raised in near-utter solitude, and to be perfectly honest, meeting new people still made her profoundly nervous. And who was to say that anyone interesting was a member of the singles club? Maleficent, for example, was ostensibly as single as they came, and she was not a member of any clubs at all.

Aurora wondered briefly whether Maleficent truly enjoyed her extreme solitude, or whether perhaps meeting new people made her ever so slightly nervous, as well. Of course, that was absurd. If there was anything that made Maleficent nervous, Aurora should hope never to encounter it, herself.

"Come now, Aunties," said Aurora as she ran a comb through her hair for the third or fourth time, "The Magic Kingdom is meant to be a safe haven for all, isn't it?"

Her aunties exchanged uncomfortable glances. Fauna might be physically incapable of speaking ill of anyone, but Flora and Merryweather had received their fair share of official reprimands for speaking unkind words against former evildoers.

"Even so, Rosie," Merryweather spoke up after a moment's silence, "that doesn't mean you ought to go around courting danger."

"Maleficent has been perfectly civil to me," Aurora told her truthfully, but she did not feel quite as flippant about it as she tried to sound. "Pleasant, even."

Aurora remembered nothing about the first time she had met Maleficent. Sometimes she dreamt about the incident, but she couldn't be certain whether these dreams contained bits of the memories she'd lost, or whether she was merely creating suppositions of what being hypnotized by Maleficent might be like.

She never saw Maleficent's face in the dreams—even when Maleficent towered over her, not hidden away in the shadows, her face was itself a shadow. All Aurora could make out were the distinctive outline of horns and the glowing yellow eyes of a beast.

One day, as she wandered aimlessly through the central marketplace in the Magic Kingdom with a basketful of fruit, Aurora had seen that familiar formation, which belonged to an ornate horned headdress and an extremely tall woman clad in flowing robes. Aurora had felt a surge of terror, but made up her mind to go on about her business, as she was sure Maleficent was doing.

As she passed, however, Maleficent turned around—a fair bit more sharply than any human ever turned around—and their eyes locked. Aurora was surprised to see that Maleficent's eyes, while they were strikingly dark in colour, were otherwise perfectly normal and not the eyes of a beast at all.

"Good afternoon, Mistress Maleficent," she said with a small curtsey.

Maleficent's dramatic features remained perfectly impassive, and Aurora found that when she was not depicted with a fearsome scowl, as she always was in books, Maleficent was extremely beautiful. "Good afternoon," she replied. Her voice was low and resonant, and it sent chills down Aurora's spine, but she spoke very quietly and evenly.

Neither of them had moved or broken eye contact, and Aurora felt bizarrely compelled to extend the interaction. "It's a lovely marketplace, isn't it?" Not long before she'd fled to the Magic Kingdom, the marketplace of Aurora's kingdom had become not only empty, but dangerous.

"A bit crowded for my taste," said Maleficent. Aurora couldn't be certain whether the words were directed at her. Maleficent's tone remained unnervingly even, and each of them had yet to look away from one another.

"You could order online, I suppose," said Aurora. The words that were one word, 'on line,' stuck in her mouth. She wasn't particularly comfortable with all of the new technology available to her in this new land.

Maleficent inclined her head ever so slightly. "And then someone would deliver my groceries to my home. And I should like that level of interaction even less."

Something about this statement, spoken, she was certain, in earnest, caused Aurora to smile, and forced her to suppress a small but surprising giggle. "Well, I'll leave you to it, then," she said. "Good day." Feeling equally giddy and disquieted, Aurora left the marketplace as quickly as possible.

In the present, Flora's voice carried a grave sternness that made everyone take her words seriously. "Danger comes in many forms, Briar Rose."

Aurora turned away from the mirror to meet her eldest aunt's eyes. "What do you mean by that, Auntie?"

Flora's frown deepened. "Won't you reconsider this, Rose? Perhaps consider speaking to—"

"No," Aurora cut her off firmly. If Philip couldn't understand that Aurora needed time, not only to adjust to her new life as a princess, but now to this new land, as well, then that was his problem, not hers. "What could possibly go wrong, Aunt Flora?" She returned to brushing her hair, and again exerted monumental effort to sound flippant. "Half the kingdom will be there."

Another awkward silence indicated that her aunties were exchanging worried looks behind her back. "That's what worries us, dearie," said Fauna.

Before Aurora could ask any further questions, however, there came a knock at the door. The knock was firm and brisk, and even though it was only a hand knocking upon an ordinary wooden door, it managed somehow to sound solemn and foreboding.

Aurora stood and took one last look in the mirror. "No turning back now," she told her aunties lightly, and went to answer the door.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Two chapter in two days? I have no idea who I am anymore. Again, thank you all so much for your enthusiasm! I hope you will continue to enjoy and to share your thoughts!

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><p>Aurora stood in front of the door for a full minute before she gathered the courage to open it. Since Maleficent had hung up on her, they hadn't made definitive plans regarding whether they would meet, or whether one would come and collect the other. So, Aurora wasn't exactly surprised that Maleficent had taken it upon herself to come to Aurora's door...perhaps she was simply taken aback that her mad plan was really coming to fruition at all.<p>

Maleficent looked much the same as she always did (or rather, as she had in the handful of times Aurora had seen her): severe and regal, and decidedly not of this world. She, like Aurora, seemed uninterested in giving any of this world's fashion trends a whirl. Her style was actually a bit old-fashioned even for Aurora's land, and it occurred to Aurora for the first time that Maleficent must be a fair bit older than she was, if she'd already been an adult when Aurora was a newborn baby.

"Right on time," said Aurora with a tentative smile.

Maleficent arched one dramatic eyebrow. "I don't like to wait about."

Aurora grabbed her shawl and bag and gave Maleficent a nod. "Shall we?"

Walking through the streets of the Magic Kingdom with Maleficent, Aurora quickly noticed, was an entirely different matter than walking through the streets with anyone else, or even by herself. When Aurora went anywhere, she received a warm salutation from nearly everyone she passed, people she knew and people she could never possibly have met. Even people from this land inexplicably knew her and loved her, though they often called her by the less-than-agreeable nickname she'd hoped to shake, Sleeping Beauty.

The attention, while invariably very kind, always made Aurora ever so slightly uncomfortable, and sometimes completely overwhelmed her. She had on more than one occasion avoided going out on some simple errand because she did not feel up to being so very visible.

If Aurora had ever felt deluged with public scrutiny, she could not imagine how Maleficent must feel. People did not merely glance at Maleficent. The moment their eyes caught sight of one of her defining characteristics, they stared openly. Some whispered, some gasped, and others even shrieked. As Aurora passed them, she began to distinguish the words they used. Beast, fiend, and monster were among the kindest.

Aurora glanced up at Maleficent, whose expression remained impassive as ever. She lowered her gaze to her shoes and felt a troubled frown settling into her face.

"Are people always like this?" she wondered quietly, more to herself than to her silent companion. Many of these must logically be the very same people who greeted Aurora with such warmth and kindness day in and day out, mustn't they?

"Only when they're frightened," Maleficent replied.

Aurora looked up at her again. "I already sort of understood why someone would want to avoid people, but this is really awful."

Maleficent's chuckle surprised Aurora, and the sound of it sent uncomfortable chills down her spine. "There are things I mind far more in mortals than a bit of healthy trepidation."

"Like what?" Did Maleficent mean to say that people were worse to her than they were now, on the streets? Did she mean that this—which Aurora would not be able to bear if it were directed at her—was nothing? That it was _healthy?_

"I expect you shall see," said Maleficent after a moment's pause. "We've an entire evening together, after all."

As it turned out, Aurora didn't have to wait very long at all to see something worse than the fearful reactions of strangers.

Aurora and Maleficent approached the House of Mouse as one pair among at least a dozen others. Max, who watched the front of the house on big nights, maintained a relaxed disposition in all manner of situations. He mostly let incoming guests pass with a friendly nod, but whenever he saw Aurora, he felt inexplicably compelled to chat.

Not that Aurora minded, necessarily, but Max was just one in an endless line of people who bombarded her with talking whenever she wanted just a little time to herself.

"Princess Aurora! Hoped I'd see you here tonight! Where's—oh." His shoulders slumped and his eyes glazed over with unmistakable fear. He glanced nervously between Aurora and Maleficent several times before he continued. "Is Prince Phillip coming? Is he...I mean, uh..." Max leaned in toward Aurora and whispered, "Is she bothering you? Are you okay?"

While Aurora floundered for a response, Maleficent took to examining her fingernails. "She can hear you," she said crisply.

Max swallowed audibly. "Right. Uh. Well."

Aurora, still dumbfounded, looked up at Maleficent in hopes of some kind of guidance. Maleficent merely gestured that Aurora should lead the way inside.

The House of Mouse was a very large dinner theater which served many purposes, from casual to elegant. Tonight it erred in the side of formal, and the tables had been shuffled around to make room for more than half the kingdom.

"Ooh, hi there, Sleeping Beauty!" came the cheerful greeting of Daisy, the House's reservation clerk. "Are you meeting Prince Phillip this evening?"

Aurora had gracefully avoided openly wincing at the use of the dreaded sobriquet, but her composure only extended so far. "No," she said as evenly as she could manage, eyes still squeezed closed.

"Princess Aurora will be dining with me this evening," Maleficent mercifully supplied. The low, resonant quality of her voice took Aurora by surprise once more, and this took her mind off of the uncomfortable manner in which she'd been addressed.

"W-with...you?"

Aurora had never seen Daisy look so frightened. Hadn't Cindy been saying just the other day that she saw...well, she'd called them villains, though that wasn't really...but that she'd seen people of a...similar reputation...here all the time?

Daisy, not unlike Max before her, glanced frantically between Maleficent and Aurora, then focused her attention on the latter. "Is that true, Your Highness?"

The emotion that settled into Aurora's veins was not one she would have expected. Aurora felt indignant. Irritated. Why, she very nearly felt downright angry! "Yes," she told Daisy with a firm nod of her head. "That's true."

More darting eyes. Another audible swallow. "Right. Uh. Well."

After another interminable moment of stammering and unnecessarily shuffling papers around on her desk, Daisy flagged down a hostess (whom Aurora thankfully did not recognize) and sent them on their way.

"I thought you came here a lot," Aurora whispered to Maleficent, electing to ignore the idle chatter of the hostess.

"_A lot_ is certainly an overstatement," Maleficent replied.

Aurora noted that Maleficent's temperament had remained unchanged throughout the course of these infuriating interactions. Where was the fearsome, dangerous magical being who struck terror into the hearts of all who would oppose her? Where was the vengeful fairy who would place a tragic curse on an infant for no reason at all?

"So it's always like this?" Aurora pressed. "Doesn't it...I don't, know, upset you?" It occurred to her that perhaps she oughtn't to give Maleficent any ideas about getting upset, but Aurora had never been particularly good at letting sleeping dragons lie, or whatever that old expression was.

Maleficent gave a quiet huff of amusement. "If I allowed such trivial matters to upset me, can you imagine what kind of blood pressure I'd have?"

The hostess seated them and handed them menus. Aurora was vaguely aware that she had told or asked them something, but Aurora and Maleficent seemed to have agreed upon ignoring her entirely.

"Well, I suppose you're right, it's just that I've heard..."

"You've heard?" Suddenly Maleficent's black eyes focused full-force upon her, and Aurora could do nothing but to gaze back into them. "What exactly have you heard, _Princess_, that compelled you to invite me to dinner?"

Aurora did not stammer. She did not dare to glance away from those dark, searching eyes. Without really knowing at all, she knew somehow that the slightest twitch on her part would indicate defeat in a game she wasn't even fully aware that she was playing.

"Well," Aurora tilted her head slightly, and she spoke slowly and carefully, "I've heard you don't like to be uninvited."

A tiny smirk, which would be imperceptible from any distance further than that of the dinner table between them, graced Maleficent's lips, and her dark eyes seemed suddenly to sparkle. "Touché," she said quietly.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Sometimes you accidentally stay up way too late and write a chapter in one sitting. Hopefully it's not an absolute mess. Thank you so much for your support and feedback! I hope that you will continue to enjoy and to share your thoughts!

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><p>Maleficent didn't see the first one coming.<p>

She found it unsettling that she'd been caught so utterly off-guard, but she was preoccupied by the arrival of the soup (entitled Dragon Stew, though her heated discussion with the waitress had revealed that it did not contain actual dragon nor was it technically a stew), and Aurora was about to ask her a question. There'd been a faint glimmer in her violet-blue eyes, which indicated that the question might be interesting, or at the very least, controversial if posed by a princess, and hadn't Maleficent agreed to this mad excursion on the grounds that it would be interesting and controversial?

Then, suddenly, "Hey there, Dragon Lady."

Aurora stopped mid-sentence, mouth slightly agape, and Maleficent experienced something utterly foreign: her thought process _lurched_. She'd been single-mindedly involved in the situation before her, concentration unfettered by the usual multi-tasking, and whatever-this-was had _interrupted_ her.

The pause lasted no longer than an instant, of course, and Maleficent turned upon her intruder already seething with profound irritation.

Hades. Lord of the Underworld. Incidentally also Lord of Numerous Insufferable Attempts to win her favour. At least he wasn't bare-chested this time. She'd glared at him long enough to create an uncomfortable silence, and she could see him floundering for something to say.

"You, uh...busy?"

Maleficent raised her eyebrows, gestured to her dinner companion.

"Oh. Heh. Excuse me. Princess. Sleeping Beauty. The one, the only. Pardon me. Didn't mean to intrude. Maleficent, cupcake, if I could just have a moment of your—"

"Refer to me as a product of confectionery again, Hades, and I shall burn you to a crisp."

"Right. Yeah. Great. Sorry. Listen, I was just wondering—"

"Leave. Now." Under normal circumstances, she'd have sent him off with a nice bolt of lightning, but she was dining with a princess, and she rather imagined that violence at this stage in the evening would put a lamentable damper upon their conversation.

"He's so creepy," said Aurora quietly, after he'd slunk away.

Maleficent closed her eyes briefly. The image of Hades in nothing but red shorts was forever burned into her mind. "I daresay you've no idea."

"I mean, it's not that he's Lord of the Dead or whatever, he's just...I always feel like he's sizing me up or something, you know?"

"Hmm." This observation returned Maleficent's attention to the lovely young woman who sat across from her. That Maleficent should be the one among them who would spend the evening fending off unwanted attention struck her as almost comical. But Aurora was engaged, and everyone in the Magic Kingdom was well aware of it.

Maleficent hadn't made up her mind on the subject of whether she intended to ask after the current state of Aurora's engagement before Aurora spoke again. "It...sort of seems like that's happened before."

"Every time."

Aurora frowned. It was a delicate expression, and Maleficent found it difficult to imagine her face portraying real anger. "I suppose you could admire his persistence."

"I believe that when the object of one's advances is neither interested nor flattered, nor even amused, the arguably admirable quality of perseverance becomes the rather less favourable act of harassment."

"Oh," Aurora uttered. Her eyes went wide with the surprise of this revelation. "Well. I suppose that's right, isn't it?"

Her eyes were a vivid and slightly unusual colour, and they were very expressive. Maleficent could see that her comment had set one or more tangential trails of thought into motion. She took this as her opportunity to open up the subject that interested her. "I expect your famous engagement affords you some repose from the lechery of the common man."

As though a switch had been flipped, Aurora's eyes flashed, and she became suddenly very interested in her soup spoon. "Oh, that," she replied unhelpfully.

Maleficent waited patiently, hoping there would be an addendum. She used this time to contemplate her own soup, and why in Hell's name a person would see fit to call a generic beef-and-vegetable concoction Dragon Stew. Of all the imbecilic...

"I hadn't really thought about it," Aurora continued at long last. "It comes with its own unique flavour of harassment."

"How do you mean?"

Aurora stirred her soup thoughtfully. "'Why isn't Prince Philip with you,' 'when is the wedding,' and my personal favourite—" she pointed her spoon at Maleficent, who raised her eyebrows "—'when do you suppose you'll start thinking of having children?' Children!" Aurora dropped her spoon and covered her face.

"And I know in our world, I'd be at that age, getting a little old, even, and people started to whisper..." she looked up at Maleficent, eyes wide and glistening. "But now, here, we've got this new world of possibilities before us! Suddenly there are things all around me that I'd never even dreamed of even a year ago, and I want..." she paused, frowned, averted her eyes again. "I only want a chance to explore a bit, you know? Before I have to settle down and...and honour and obey and whatnot."

"Well, well! Good evening, Mistress Maleficent. What a pleasure to see you here. May I say that you are looking ravishing this eve—"

Without even thinking, Maleficent flicked her fingers, and a bolt of lightning served as her response to Captain Hook and his dreadful moustache.

She wouldn't have thought another thing of it, except that Aurora looked positively horrified. She was glancing back and forth between Maleficent and the rapidly retreating gentleman in a long red coat, as though she might be the next recipient of Maleficent's wrath.

Maleficent allowed herself a small sigh. They'd been having such a fascinating conversation before the captain had seen fit to insert himself into her awareness, and he'd ruined it all. Maleficent hadn't wanted to deal with him any longer than absolutely necessary, and in her haste, she'd completely forgotten her intention to postpone violent expulsion of unwanted suitors.

"I do beg your pardon, your Highness," she said drily. "I assure you he'll be quite all right." _Unfortunately_, she amended privately.

It took Aurora a moment to stop looking like a frightened animal, and when she did, her first question was relatively neutral. "Was that Captain Hook?"

"Indeed it was."

She looked over her shoulder in the direction he'd retreated. "I hope you won't think me rude for asking, but is it only ever..." she paused for an amount of time which was almost uncomfortable "...persons...of a villainous reputation...who try to earn your favour?"

Oddly enough, Maleficent was far more amused than irritated. "Generally I hold no appeal for those of a virtuous reputation," she said coolly.

Aurora turned back to look at her, and her eyes twinkled. "Perhaps they're deterred by the lightning," she offered.

"Hi there!"

Mickey Mouse was not precisely Maleficent's favourite person, but nor was he an insufferable blemish upon the face of her existence. His perkiness was far more than Maleficent was willing to tolerate on any more than a minute-by-minute basis, but he possessed an innate purity of intention which Maleficent did not observe in the vast majority of people. She could tolerate the self-proclaimed Good only so long as they were truly righteous, and not merely self-righteous.

"Good evening," she said.

"Hi, Mickey!" Aurora responded with equal, if subdued cheer.

"Gosh, I'm just so happy to see everybody making new friends!" he exclaimed.

And while Maleficent could see the usual signs of nervousness—the faint glisten of sweat, fidgeting hands, shifting weight—she knew he genuinely meant what he said, however insipid. She set out to say something moderately pleasant in response, but once again her train of thought was thrown suddenly and violently off its tracks.

Aurora's face lit up when she smiled, and the sight so ensnared Maleficent's attention that she forgot she meant to say anything at all.

"That makes at least two of us, Mickey," said Aurora.

"Ha ha! Well, I hope you enjoyed the soup! Sorry about the name, Maleficent." Hands in pockets, weight shift forward, back, hands out of pockets eyes darting left, right, left, but at least he didn't stutter when he spoke her name. "Donald thought it was funny, but I know you might not agree. Oops, that's my cue. Enjoy the show, folks!"

Maleficent watched him go, then, almost reluctantly, returned her attention to Aurora. Still smiling. Still radiant.

"That was very nice of him."

Still a princess. Still engaged.

"If there is one thing Mickey Mouse embodies, it is nice," Maleficent replied absently.

This could not end well.


End file.
